For preschoolers, the concept of TIME is beyond their developmental capacity. They don’t quite get the concept of minutes, hours, tomorrow, yesterday.
I will hear them say things like “Tomorrow I went to the park.” Did it already happen or will it happen? They couldn’t tell you!
When you tell a 4-year old “you will have a turn in 5 minutes,” you might see him begin to count “1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It’s my turn now!” In his mind, it makes zero sense that he should be counting to 60… 5 times!
One time, Ryan told me, “My birthday is Fall 24th.” What I took from that statement is that his parents must have told him that his birthday came in the Fall. September 24th? October 24th? November 24th? Who knows? Fall 24th… Close enough!
On a different day, Gregory proudly exclaimed, “Every three hours, I just get a good idea. And I just got one!”
A good idea…just like clockwork. I love this!
A 4-year old is egocentric which means that the world as he sees it IS the world. It was the first week of school, and Rachel was missing her mom. She repeatedly asked, “When is Mommy coming?” Answering 2 hours or 45 minutes would have made no sense to her, so instead I would outline the day in order of activities. We will play for awhile, then clean up, then hear a story, then have a snack, then play outside, THEN the mommies will come.
Rachel hung on every word. As a 4-year old hears explanations literally, so did Rachel. A few minutes later, she approached me saying, “Well, I’m done playing now.” So I happen to speak 4-year-old, and the translation would be “I am done playing NOW. So we need to move on to those other activities NOW and that means Mommy will get here closer to NOW.
As our morning winded down and we were on the playground, Rachel came to me again and stated, “I am done playing outside NOW.” Translation: Outside play is over NOW; therefore Mommies must come NOW.”
Oh, that we could manipulate time like that!